"Dave? Walker Easterling."
"Hey! What time is it? Christ, what's so important at eight in the morning that it can't wait?"
"Dave, I want you to do some more research for me."
"Right now? Can I brush my teeth first? What happened, did you find another skeleton in your family closet?"
"No, this time it's something more in your direction. I want you to find out all you can about the history of the fairy tale 'Rumpelstiltskin.' I know it comes from the Brothers Grimm, but I want you to really dig into this and find out everything you can."
After checking with the doctor on duty and hearing that Maris was still sleeping, I went home for a shower and a change of clothes. Orlando was indignant that I'd left him alone for the whole night, so I first had to play with him for some minutes before he walked away with his tail in the air, satisfied for the time being.
I was tired and stiff and worried about Maris, but once I was back in my apartment, the other phone call from the night before came back and hit me full force. Everything that had happened since then had clouded over some of what he had said, but enough of it returned and gave me a full dose of the creeps. Not to mention the dream I'd had in the hospital waiting room which, along with the other dreams I'd had over the last weeks, was beginning to make some sense.
After I showered, changed, and put the coffee on, I went to my desk and looked for a pencil and paper. While searching around, I happened to notice the computer in the corner and thought that would work just as well. Turning it on, I put in and pulled out the various disks, commands, blah-blah that needs to be done before you can have your conversation with the television screen. While it was thinking, I fiddled with the mouse and thought about the names Kaspar, Balthazar, and Melchior. When the word-processing program came up, I created a new file and typed those names at the top. Remembering that somewhere in Maris's load of books was a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales, I got up to look for it. Unbelievably, it was the second book I pulled out of a big box. "Rumpelstiltskin," page 209.
Although it's a famous story, I didn't realize how short it was. Before reading, I did a quick line count and saw it was no more than 1500 words. Her copy was in English and I knew I'd have to get hold of the German original too, but for the moment this would be enough.
Whether we have better memories, or simply a better capacity for wonder as children, what struck me was how well I remembered the story, although it had been more than twenty years since I'd last read it: The poor miller's daughter who can supposedly spin straw into gold (according to her father), the king's interest, her desperation when it comes times to actually do it.
When she began to weep, the door suddenly opened, and a little man entered.
Not a midget or a dwarf, "a little man."
What I had forgotten was that he first takes a necklace and a ring from the girl before he does any spinning for her. That made no sense, even in the land of fairy tales. If she was so poor, where did she get all the jewelry? I decided to hold off on the cynicism until I'd read the whole story.
Just after that comes the first intriguing part of the story. When the girl has nothing left to give but still must spin gold for the king, the little man demands her first child when she becomes queen. She agrees! Until that point we're obviously supposed to not only be on her side, but feel great pity for both her poverty and helplessness. But if she is so virtuous, why would she accede so quickly to such a terrible and inhuman demand? All that is said to justify her decision is, Who knows whether it will ever come to that? thought the miller's daughter. And since she knew of no other way out of her predicament, she promised the little man what he demanded.
Lured to the kitchen by the strong perfume of fresh coffee, I got up feeling like a graduate student at work on his thesis: "A Critical Examination of the Role of Early Germanic Sexism in 'Rumpelstiltskin,' by Walker J. Easterling." There's probably some weenie out there actually writing something like that.
Warming my hands around the coffee cup, I looked down into the courtyard, but today there was no Rumpelstiltskin bicycle leaning up against the wall. I remembered the scene in The Bicycle Thief where the little boy watches his father steal a bicycle and then get chased by the mob. My father? The only father I'd ever known was Jack Easterling of Atlanta, Georgia. A tall, quiet man who sold ad space in the Atlanta Constitution and liked nothing more than to have a catch in the backyard with his son Walker, who was never a very good baseball player.
Walker, Moritz, Alexander (Rednaxela), Walter.
Easterling, Benedikt, Kroll . . .
What was the last name of the boy in my Rumpelstiltskin dream? My coffee break was over. Before sitting down again with the book, I typed those names into the computer, too.
The king comes in the next morning, and seeing his third haul of new gold, decides to marry the girl. Nothing more is heard of their relationship until a year later when the queen delivers her first child.
The little man had disappeared (?!) from her mind, but now he suddenly appeared in her room and said, 'Now give me what you promised.'
Wait a minute. I knew it was a story, but how in the world could he have 'disappeared' from her mind when from the beginning he'd been the reason for her success? I was chewing on that when a few lines later I found the key to the story.
The queen was horrified and offered the little man all the treasures of the kingdom if he would let her keep the child, but the little man replied, "No, something living is more important to me than all the treasures of the world."
Why would he say that? If he was magical enough to spin straw into gold, couldn't he just as well have conjured up a real child of his own? Something in what he said the night before slid into my mind. Something about how the girl promised to love him even if he couldn't do it. What was it, sex? An intriguing notion, and it made sense. I read the line again. . . . something living is more important to me than all the treasures of the world.
I put on my screenwriter's hat and started thinking about motivation. The little man falls in love with the girl and does her spinning. He thinks she'll love him for it, even though he's not a "real" man because he's incapable of taking her to bed. But that makes him fight all the harder for her because he hopes that by doing all these magical things, she'll love him anyway.
I sat back in the chair and snorted. What would Freud or Bruno Bettelheim say? This had to go into the computer too. I went over and started typing, not watching what was happening on the screen. When I did have a few words written, I looked up to check.
On the monitor was a picture of a room. It was clear and in color and looked like a movie. A television flickered in a corner of the room and I realized one of my old films was showing there: the film I had made with Nicholas when Victoria and I first came to Vienna. I even knew the scene. It had been so difficult to shoot that we'd had to do it over and over until Nicholas blew his top at me and said, "Start acting like a human being, will you?"
Someone in the room laughed.
The picture bled away and was replaced by one of Victoria and a man in bed, fucking: the actor I'd introduced her to who owned all of the nice Hoffmann furniture. They were moving around like mad dogs, howling and biting, eating each other alive. Despite the passage of time and my great love for Maris, what I saw punched me in the stomach. While my friend humped my wife, she began hitting him on the back with her small fist. She cried out "I hate you! I hate you, Walker!" The man laughed and put his hand over her mouth. She bit it and made him yelp. My memories of sleeping with Victoria were quiet and comfortable. She used to tickle my back with her long fingernails, and laugh when I tried to roll her around or do something different.